Donald T Palmgren (lonewolf@utkux.utcc.utk.edu)
Fri, 6 Mar 1998 04:48:21 +0100
Hey, gang.
Just some responces here.
THIS ONE'S FROM MAGNUS:
>> There are no philosophical laws, only pointers. Phil. is an art, not a
>> science. (That too is worth reflecting on.)
> And why does art and science have to be separated? One of Pirsig's
> major goals with ZMM and Lila was to join them.
Well, what I had in mind is not Art-proper and Science-proper, but
like when we say: "John's got cooking down to a science," or "He's raised
cooking to an art form." (It's fundamentaly a metaphore.)
The distinction is that in "a science" there is supposed to be a
system, a formula, a recipie that you grind stuff through the same way or
w/ very little variation. "An art" plays fast and loose. There are no
systems, no procedures and no recipies, just guidelines, rules-of-thumb
and pointers (and these can get prety darn flexable). I guess you could
say science values system and art values free-play, but I wouldn't get too
caught-up in chasing metaphores. (*Language* is fast and loose and
fundamentaly metaphorical.)
>> Magnus, it seems to me that you're so bussy hunting this demon,
>> objective philosophy (or subjective philosophy), that you neglected to
>> pause and reflect: What does it mean to say someone is being objective?
>> And, What is Phil.? (Which also asks: What's the pay-off in-- and what
>> counts as understanding in-- )
>Not really, I'm not hunting objective or subjective philosophy. I'm
>hunting
>the presumption that if something isn't objective, it must be subjective.
>I'm not really interested in what it means to be objective, because the
>search for pure objectiveness leads only to infinite regression. I
>thought
>I answered the other questions one or two weeks ago.
You did. But (as a rule of thumb) you could say that Donny dosn't
value answers. We're are programed by schools (and I teach in one, I know)
to take a question as a blank to be filled in. Rather I try to take
questions as questions -- something that begins a movement of thought.
Answers stop thought. We've gotten used to seeing a question as a test and
not as an oppertunity or an invitation.
That's why (as other pointers, or tools) I have
question-questions:
* What is that like asking? Make annalogies? "What is time?" is
like "When is time?" or "Where is space?" "What is experience?" That's
like, "How do you know when you've had an experience?" (as opposed to
what?) Or "What is Quality?" What's that like asking? Is that like,
"What's a dog?" No, clearly not. Quality is property something might have
the way a building might have "bigness." "What is big?"
* How does it arise naturally -- in actual discourse -- not as a
classroom abstraction from life -- but in life?
* Why is it questionable and not sceamingly obvious? If
something is a real question (and not a rehetoricl or school question)
then it means something is hidden, and there are numerous ways information
can be hidden.
And so on.
> :) Ok, the tool doesn't really mean anything other than a help to
> remember them. But I can't help wondering if all philosophers are
> as relaxed about such tools as you are.
They're not. When money is on the line, pro-philosophers what to
make phil. as objective as science -- to "get the art down to a science"
one might say. ;-)
> Another thing, do you think it's possible to define a logic
> independent of a metaphysics? I see that you make a clear
> distinction between logical distinction and metaphysical claim
> and I can't say I do. I think a metaphysics is the discourse
> where logical distinctions are made.
Hmmm... There are 4 types of sentences: interogative,
declairative, imparative, and exclamitory.
Now, have I made a claim about what really exists? -- or about
what *really* exists? (Which is asking, really, "What exits
always/everywhere?") Sentences, of course, exist, but clearly not
always/everywhere. They're not the ground of reality. The pay-off of
metaphysics isn't a humongus list of every particuler "being" -- it asks,
of course, what all particuler beings have in common -- what's universal.
Now if I say, "some thing is either spacialy extended or it is
not," that's the kind of stament worthy of an "Of course!" or maybe even
a "No shit?" "This is either X or it is not." (We'll leave paradoxes [mu]
out of this for the time being, okay? I'm not trying to argue the validity
of any particuler logical claims, just to point to what they are.) BUT if
I say, "What really exits are spacially extended bodies," or "Everything
that really exits is composed of one of two types of 'stuff': Mind or
Body,"... well, does everyone see how they differ?
Now, are logic and metaphysics seperate? No! They're the form and
the content. (And if you dig McLuhan then the form determans the
content or the posibilitys of the content.) So I don't mean the two have
nothing to do w/ one-another; just that 'here I'm talking about logic;
here I'm talking about metaphysics,' and that every logical claim is not
relavent to what *really* exists.
THIS ONE'S FROM BO:
>Donny
>I attach something about what you said in another post about
>the "Geist" term of German. As a Norwegian with a language heavily
>German-related (through Danish influence) I know the geist/mind
>distinction. There are two kinds of "mind": Sinn and Geist. The
>former means generally what goes on on the subjective plane, the
>latter a more noble kind (geistlich=cergy). Perhaps more as "spirit",
>but not quite. It's not ghost. Phew!
Yes, that's why I don't like the sometimes "Phenomonology of
Mind." "Spirit" is closer, but Hegel is clear that this is a metaphore (to
the Holy Spirit) not to be taken literaly -- not a ghost. I can't read
German (have enough trouble w/ English), but my best friend lives in
Shlezvig-Houlstine, a stone's throw south of the Dannish boarder. He
dosn't have anything better than "spirit" either.
>But I think you've got the "reciprocity" wrong. That is the objective
>(Gegenstnde) in German; that which stands opposite the subject.
Oh, sorry, I should be more clear. Your right, *Geist* dosn't mean
"reciprocity" as far as the dictionary. What I ment is that Hegel (using
the tearm as a metaphor) indicates what I would call (when reduced to one
word) "reciprocity." This is a Hegelian thing, not a German thing.
Emile Durkheim (French sociologist) writes:
"A society can neither create itself nor recreate itself w/o at
the same time creating an ideal... The ideal society is not outside of the
real society; it is a part of it. [The way the rules of a game live in the
players.] Far from being divided between them as between two poles which
mutually repel one another, we cannot hold to one w/o holding to the
other. For a society is not made up merely of the mass of individuals who
compose it, the ground which they occupy, the things which they use, and
the movements which they perform, but *above all* is the idea which it
forms of itself."
That's quite a bit like Hegel's Geist. (Which, by the way, is all
implicit in Aristotle. Hegel's thought is Greek, really.)
TTFN (ta-ta for now)
Donny
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